My Sanity for a House
by Delphinbella
Summary: Dib and Gaz are moving to another state, leaving Zim to fend for himself and continue to try to take over the world unapposed. But when he is needed most, will Dib be able to make himself fight again? CHAPTER 5 UP.
1. Default Chapter

A/N: This is my first Zimfic, and I'm finding it rather had to find something that hasn't been written a thousand times before. So, in the end I'm sure it will turn out to be the same old Zim tries to take over, Dib stops him but doesn't expose him, they are both going crazy fic that everyone writes. There will probably not be slash or ZADR, so at least that separates it from half of the fics out there ;) And its not because I don't like slash or ZADR – I just don't think its part of this particular story.

Anywho, none of the characters in this story are mine except the ones in the town Dib moves to, who are all NPCs anyways and don't really matter. And so with that out of the way (because I'm sure you thought I owned Zim right? I wish) we shall begin.

* * *

"My Sanity for a House"

The long silver knife barely found resistance as it pierced the green flesh, exposing equally green runny insides that dripped slowly onto the cool metal table. Two thin cuts parallel to each other, one on the bottom to connect them, and two diagonally across the top making the easy-to-peel-back shape of a pike – or maybe a very thin, short house. The fluorescent lights above left no tiny organ within unexposed as the knife molested the green body and left it hideously deformed.

A misjudged cut and green juice squirted up onto the glasses of the boy haphazardly doing the autopsy. He swore gently under his breath - a word he had heard his father use once when the original super toast had gone under and his father's good name with it. Of course, the great Professor Membrane had bounced back with an even better version of super toast that swept the nation like a plague.

Taking his glasses off to wipe them on his white shirt, Dib was suddenly stuck between his unprotected eyes by something warm and grainy, but soft. Arranging his spectacles on his ears so they weren't crooked, the boy looked down at the muffin that had bounced off his forehead and into the plate of green beans he had been laboriously dissecting.

"Behold!" the irritatingly loud voice called from across the busy lunchroom, causing kids to stop in mid-bite to see what was going on this time, and to hope that it would be a food-fight of giant proportions. "Dib has succumbed to my Muffin of Doom!"

Brown eyes rolled under glass as Dib looked up, un-amused, at his mortal enemy, arch nemesis and causer of all sorts of dastardly doomed deeds.

Silently, he went back to his green beans.

"Ahha!" that annoying voice again, closer this time as the green fiend jumped from lunch table to lunch table, edging even closer with each maniacal laugh. "Do you see how the Dim-monkey cowers before the Irken Elite! Cower Dib-monkey! Cower!" As the black boots landed in Dib's view the green beans went flying - scattering across the table and floor, two hitting his kid sister in the forehead. He could feel the heat rising with her anger as a broken green bean splattered its disgusting matter all over her Gameslave screen.

"Zim, if you don't stop annoying me NOW," her voice rose in pitch and volume as she spoke, "I will make you regret this day for the rest of your hideously pathetic life!"

Zim stopped short, pausing half-leaned over Dib to look at the earth girl and decide whether or not she might make good on the threat. Deciding the Irken Elite didn't have time for such silly children, he turned his freakish purple contacts back to the bigheaded boy before him. "Bow to me dirt-worm! Bow to Zim!" Somehow, his voice always ended up an octave lower when he said his own name.

"Go away Zim, I'm not in the mood today." Dib closed his eyes as if the apparition before him would disappear so easily. Rubbing his eyelids under his glasses with his left hand, his right slammed the knife down into the remaining green beans.

Ever the intelligent observer, the alien squinted one eye at the boy below him in the cafeteria bench and tried to decipher what this new behavior could mean. Dib didn't want to fight back? He wasn't going to try to throw his glass of punch or rip out the alien's contacts to expose his red pupiless eyes? The Dib-monkey must be sick.

"You should see the skool nurse. This is probably something serious that needs to be immediately treated by a filthy health professional. When you are feeling better we will resume our struggle for the future of the planet." Stepping backwards off the table, Zim seated himself opposite his opponent, darting an eye towards Gaz to make sure she was fully re-immersed in her game and not plotting a way to kill him with a green bean and a spork. He himself knew of several ways to do so himself and none were a thrilling way to go down in Invader history.

Finally re-opening his eyes, Dib released his death grip on the knife and tried to explain as slowly and rationally to his green enemy why he didn't care for their little game of destroy/save the world at the moment. "I am not sick, Zim," he started out with clenched teeth, "I am not coming back to 'struggle for the future of the planet' as you so deftly put it. We are moving to another state. Game over. You win."

"Moving?" One purple contact squinted while a black-gloved hand scratched at the toupee the alien wore as a 'disguise'. Then his eyes lit up behind their white and purple screens and a toothy smile spread across the green face. "You have given up? You are moving to another planet with the shame of a defeat by Zim!" Once again his own name was said an octave lower - it grated on Dib's nerves.

Gaz looked up from her game, teeth set in a grimace, dark purple eyes squinting darkly at the incompetent fool across the table. "We are moving to a different state Zim, not a different planet. And if you interrupt my game one more time with your antics and stupid questions I will personally see to your speedy demise before that date."

A bead of sweat broke out on the Invader's forehead as he looked at her out of the corner of his eyes. "Yes, well, anyhow... ehem," a gloved hand covered his mouth as he cleared his throat. "When will this... shameful retreat be taking place?"

"Next week," had barely made it out of Dib's mouth when Gaz reached across the table, grabbed Zim's thin little neck and shook him so hard his teeth clashed together and his head snapped back. "Ow," he managed to breath before he complacently left their table; head cocked backwards starring at the ceiling.

"Thanks sis," Dib managed a weak smile as he watched the green form walk off towards the 'filthy health professionals' office.

"Whatever." Gaz was already lost in level 14 of her newest game: Pig Zombies from the Vaults of Vort.

* * *

Sitting with his back against a fire hydrant that smelled faintly of chocolate bubblegum and turkey, and his short legs wrapped up under his arms, Dib starred at the only thing on earth that proved his sanity. The house was short and thin, much like its owner, with a fake window near the top and a "mens" bathroom sign on the door. All four fake garden gnomes out front had their lifeless eyes trained on his glasses, but he had not stepped foot within the white picket fence so they sat meaninglessly in the dead grass.

The "I 3 Earth" flag stood straight out in the breathless air – just another testament to the boy's sanity.

"What are you doing Dib-worm?" The normally high-pitched voice was softer with the alien's struggle for comprehension at his enemy's new behavior.

"I'm looking."

"Looking for what?" There was a note of paranoia in the green boy's question. The human had never bothered just looking at the house before – what was he trying to find it in? A weakness to exploit? A souvenir to take with him?

Dib sighed and pushed the glasses back up on his nose. "Nevermind. You wouldn't understand."

A black boot blocked the view as Zim stood over Dib, leaning over him as he had earlier that week in the cafeteria. "Wouldn't understand? Filthy human! I understand all! I am Zim!"

At least he hadn't said his own name an octave lower this time.

"Dib, what are you doing? We have to finish packing!" Gaz's deceptively light voice traveled across the circular street to the figure still sitting, unmoving, on the ground.

"I'm looking!"

"Looking for what?"

Under his glasses, Dib closed his eyes as one lid twitched. "Nevermind, I'm coming."

He pushed himself up from the cement, looking past the green head in front of him to the empty window of the house. Behind its fake glass were all the resources of the Irken Elite. Everything needed for an Invader, however doomed his mission may be, to collect information to be used against the human race in the struggle for galactic domination. Drills that could pinpoint the happiness center of your brain and test your response to various stimuli, tiny micro-ships that could enter the body and destroy you from the inside out, a computer system with the information to take over the Massive and lead it to a fiery doom within a dying sun – all these things and more hid behind the white picket fence and "I 3 Earth" flag.

Brown eyes traveled down the building as the front door opened and a green dog stepped onto the small cement porch, tongue hanging out and a vacant expression on its face. "TAQUITOS!" it barked at the street before slamming the door on the human boy's gaze.

Turning his back on dog and owner, Dib walked across the street where his purple-haired sister was waiting. He could feel the electric red gaze following his back and heard the singsong voice follow him down the street.

"Goodbye dirt-monkey! Have fun trying to save the filthy planet from another state!"


	2. Chapter 2

Twenty-three students filed into the classroom and took their seats noisily. One year after the nightmare began and they still had the same seating arrangement and the same teacher. Some found it to be a personal conspiracy against their graduating class; others thought it must be karma. Everyone agreed that their crazy, and suddenly absent, classmate was probably the reason for it.

Mrs. Bitters seemed to hang mid-air at the front of the room, watching each greasy body with the glare of her pupiless white eyes. She scanned each seat, taking a mental roll call and stopped with an even bigger frown at the empty chair in the front of the classroom nearest the windows.

"Where is Dib?" she asked with the sharp edge of annoyance in her voice. "Last week he was sitting in that seat there and now there is NOTHING."

"Dib's crazy," Zita offered from the opposite side of the classroom.

"Dib moved," Zim corrected her absentmindedly as he picked at the thin plastic running around the wooden edge of the desk. If he could get a sample of this he might be able to produce some of his own as a suit for a rainy day. The paste worked well enough, but it was so uncomfortable when he tried to get up after sitting for a while and his thighs stuck together. It always made him trip. But with a suit of plastic that the water couldn't get through he might not fall over when the bell rang at the end of class. This was worth looking into…

"In that case," the old woman was talking through the alien's thoughts in her deep, scratched voice, "Zim!" Innocent white and purple eyes looked up as his gloved hands folded over themselves until Zim was the picture of perfect human attention. "You are to be the new student who is alienated from the rest of your classmates at every possible moment of the day. Enjoy your demotion."

"Zim's crazy," Zita responded mechanically from the desk behind the green boy.

"Why would you do that?" His voice was soft with the question but Zim's red eyes flashed dangerously at the ghastly old bitch.

* * *

Every face turned forward in unison and necks craned as the new boy with the big glasses and even bigger head walked into the room and stood self-consciously at the front of the classroom. Shifting, the wrinkles in his favorite shirt caused the face on the front to frown.

"He's cute," he heard the whisper and then a group of girls to the left giggled.

"He looks weird," another whisper and two boys high-fived each other in the back.

"I bet he's crazy. Crazy like Joe." At the displaced voice a boy in the front row blushed in anger and continued to draw what looked like a crop circle on the brown book jacket that said "Science" at the top in neatly blocked letters.

"Class?" The teacher, a younger woman (although compared to Mrs. Bitters even Dib's grandma was a younger woman) with dark shapely glasses and short red hair called in a quiet but powerful voice. "Class, I would like you to meet Dib, son of the famous Professor Membrane, and the newest addition to our growing school family."

Dib raised an eyebrow at the woman who was obviously meant to be teaching grades much lower than his own 7th grade class. So far everyone he had met in this town had been overly pleasant and naïve. It was a nice change from the caustic jackasses back home, but it was still pretty creepy.

Laying a gentle hand firmly on his shoulder, Ms.Green pushed Dib closer to the hungry eyes of his classmates. "Go on Dib, tell us a little about yourself."

_Well, I come from a town full of stupid, self-involved jackasses; my father is famous for inventing a joke called Super Toast; I want to study paranormal sciences - you know bigfoot, nessie, ghosts, that sort of thing; and the only person who doesn't believe that I am insane is an alien who lives in a short, thin house with a "I 3 Earth" flag that never moves in the breeze. _Yeah, that would go over well.

Taking a deep breath, Dib let it slowly slide out between his thin lips. He didn't want to be crazy anymore. He didn't want to visit the local graveyard and have conversations with its ghostly inhabitants; he didn't want to try to convince people that crop circles were not real.

He didn't want his sanity to be dependant on the existence, or not, of a house.

No more "insane son", no more "stupid kid", no more "crazy Dib".

"Dib? Son? You ok?"

He looked up again at the tidal wave of faces leaning towards him. "Huh? Oh, sorry." A pink blush crept up into his pale face as he tried to smooth back the cowlick that always stood up on his forehead.

"I'm Dib. I just moved here from another state, and uh, I'm excited to start this new chapter in my life…"


	3. Chapter 3

The day had been hot enough to melt all intentions away into a puddle of blissfully relaxing nothing. Formerly dedicated to filling out college applications and studying for the SATs, Dib had ended up spending the day with two of his best friends--Jenna and Josh--at the beach, the 7-11, and finally the roof of his house where the three of them were laying back, staring at the stars.

Jenna was whispering with Josh, which wasn't all that unusual considering their new relationship. Dib wasn't paying much attention, his eyes wandering the sky above and his heart stopping every time he saw a light moving. _It's just a satellite dummy,_ he would tell himself as flashes of memories shot through his head. He was able to give up most of his former life in the past six years. He donated most of his notes and paranormal paraphernalia to the Swollen Eyeballs before finally cutting off all contact with them. He let his sister eat the remainder of his haunted gummy bear collection. But all his notes and research on Zim remained locked up between an obscure folder in his computer and a cashbox in his closet with a child-like drawing of a house on the top.

"I don't know, why don't you ask him yourself?"

Josh's voice pulled Dib from his thoughts and he looked over to the happy couple. They both appeared to be rather irritated and Jenna was blushing; blushing enough that Dib could see it in the dark.

"You're such a baby," Josh said to her and then propped himself up on his elbows to talk over her at Dib. "She wants to know why you have so many scars?"

And there it was, the reason -- before today -- that Dib never went to the beach or hung outside on hot days. He had always played for the "shirts" team, or cried homework and stayed in the cool A.C. of his own house on hot days. Today, however, he had succumbed to the heat and peer pressure (not to mention the broken A.C.) and gone to the beach.

Dib ran a hand through his hair, which was sticking up in every direction since swimming. His scythe was especially prominent now, even though he had cut his hair short and spiky at the beginning of high school. Looking at the ground before his crossed legs, he scratched absentmindedly at a mosquito bite on the back of his neck. "I uh, got most of them as a kid; before I moved here. There was someone in my class I didn't get along with very well and we fought a lot." Shrugging off any further details, and making a conscious effort to stop fidgeting, he changed position and wrapped his arms around his knees.

"Yeah but..." Jenna paused, "some of them don't look normal. The one on your side looks like a hand print..."

"Heh," Dib laughed as his hand traveled to his right side where a small, pink, claw-like handprint remained. "Acid burn. The others are lasers." The couple was looking at him in disbelief as he elaborated, "My dad's a scientist. I had access to things I probably shouldn't have been playing with in sixth grade."

"Oh," Jenna replied and shot Josh a disbelieving look. "I never pegged you as the fighting type."

"I'm not!" Dib interjected quickly and returned to the mosquito bite. "They were silly, childish games that got out of hand."

"Well, whatever man. It's good to know if we get attacked by laser-wielding aliens or something you've got our backs." Josh laughed at his joke but the only reply Dib could think of was, _you have no idea_.

* * *

The three spent only a few minutes more on the roof after that. As Dib walked them downstairs and to the front door he was met with a picture on the television of his old Skool, smoking and half-obliterated.

Gaz was sitting on the couch, Game Slave half-forgotten in her lap.

"What are you watching?" Dib stopped on the last step as the scene changed to the familiar old MacMeaties, though the only identifiable part was the sign on the corner. The voice off-screen was talking about the 'biggest terrorist attack in years' and 'officials have yet to find any leads'.

"What do you think it is, stupid? The scary monkey show?" Gaz turned around, dangly skull earrings brushing her cheek below short-cropped hair. "It's the NEWS, Dib."

Dib rolled his eyes and thought it best not to ask what was happening -- all the pictures made it quite obvious. The screen changed again to a mess of rubble and panned out to reveal his old neighborhood. Dib's eyes widened as he quickly realized whose house that pile of rubble had been.

"Wow. That sucks," Jenna said in awe at the television screen.

"Dude," Josh pulled himself away from the slideshow of destruction and turned to his friend, "didn't you used to live in that town?"

Before Dib could reply, Gaz cut in with a callus laugh. "That town? We used to live in that house!" Her voice was higher than normal.

As the pictures flashed before his eyes the newscaster droned on. 'The attack lasted only a short time; each building seemed to explode simultaneously with no warning. There doesn't seem to be a pattern; no federal buildings were harmed and there have been no further attacks.'

Dib's cell rang and he was prepared to ignore it until Gaz spoke up distractedly. "It's been the same thing every five minutes since the newscast started. Number unknown."

Dib's heart sank into his stomach as he moved to pick it up. 'Number Unknown' was written in block letters on the indiglo background of the screen. He shot a look to Josh, flipped it open and held it to his ear. He was expecting the inhumane laughter from his memory, but could only hear silence on the other end. It was probably just dad then, calling to tell them of the attack.

"Hello?"

"Dib-Stink."

The human gave an involuntary shudder and turned away from the small group of people in his living room to compose himself. "Hello Zim."

There was a pause as the tiny terrorist apparently expected him to say something along the lines of 'why are you calling?' or 'miss me?'

"I hear the authorities have no leads." His voice sounded dry, like it was about to crack.

The laughter on the other end wasn't the maniacal sort he was expecting, but it was still a cold and humorless chuckle. "Dib! You have no idea in your dirty little human brain what you have done." Dib had to smile as the familiar voice moved up in pitch on the last word. "These 'authorities' are no real adversary. All my previous _genius_ plans have gone unnoticed. I had to sink to their stinking filthy level of _bombs_." Zim spit out the last word as if it held a sour taste. "No one appreciates all my planning, all my hard work," he cooed in his alien voice, "like you."

For a moment Dib wondered if he had finally gone crazy and this whole scenario was playing itself out in his big, big head. And then he realized his head wasn't disproportionably big any longer, and it was Zim who had gone crazy.


	4. Chapter 4

"What do you want, Zim?"

"What do I want?" Zim laughed – it was the laugh that Dib was expecting this time and made the human much less jumpy. "What do I want! I want a challenge again Dib-monkey. I want an opponent who knows what they are up against. I want to see fear and rage rather than indifference. There was fear and rage in their eyes today human-stink. Today no one called me crazy; today no one looked down at me."

"You are crazy," almost slipped out of Dib's mouth, but he caught himself before saying it aloud. He had gotten very good at catching words in his mouth since moving; Dib had all but quit talking to himself in his new hometown.

"So you want me to come back and fight." Dib replied dryly; much more a statement than a question. "No, Zim. I told you before – you win. I'm not coming back; I'm not going to be your house. The Earth is not my responsibility and you are just a kid with a skin condition."

There was a hiss on the other end of the phone and then the whole earpiece erupted into a cry of inhumane rage. Dib had to hold the phone away from his head and winced at the noise.

On the TV screen an explosion was heard off-camera and 'Oh my God, it's starting again!' could be heard as the camera panned the dark city to the newest mushroom cloud of smoke. The screen changed again to another camera closer to the blast where all that was visible through the smoke was a charred white picket fence and a torn "I heart Earth" flag flapping casually in the breeze.

Dib dropped the phone and grabbed onto the back of the couch, closing his eyes against the picture on the screen. He felt like vomiting. All that equipment, all those experiments, all that data and PROOF was gone. He had been telling himself for years that it didn't matter, that he was sane, that he had an overactive imagination; but in the back of his mind he had always known that there was proof if anyone cared to look for it. Proof in a tall, thin house with an "I heart Earth" flag and a white picket fence.

And now it was gone.

"Do you understand now?" Zim screamed from the phone on the floor. "Do you understand you filthy human!"

"Yes," Dib said more to himself than the phone and reached down to flip it shut, breaking the connection with the alien. "Turn that off," he spat at Gaz before rushing to the bathroom.

* * *

"Hey man, you ok?" Josh walked into the bathroom behind the kneeling Dib. The spiky-haired kid was leaning over the toilet bowl with his forehead resting on one arm and his eyes closed against the sight and stench of his sanity being violently heaved from his stomach and down the toilet.

Down the toilet; just like all that proof of alien existence.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry."

Jenna leaned around Josh's arm in the doorway, her concerned expression not able to mask the accusation worn just below it. "Who was on the phone?"

"How about you don't worry about it," Josh spat at her, "the guy just watched a terrorist attack on his old house. Give him a break."

"It was the kid you were telling us about wasn't it? He's the one who did it." She pressed on anyways, stepping under the arm Josh was using to bar her from the room. When Dib didn't reply she smacked his shoulder, "why don't you call the goddamn police, Dib?"

Wiping his mouth to clear any remaining vomit, Dib turned on his knees to face her. "Because they wouldn't believe me, and even if they did they couldn't stop him."

"What do you mean they couldn't stop him? You tell them who it is and where to find him and they go arrest him. What's your fucking problem Dib? Go call the police!"

Josh grabbed Jenna's shoulders gently and pulled her away from the fight she was starting. After this evening's galleria of scars he had the feeling Dib was not someone you wanted to mess with, despite his lanky build and geeky appearance.

Dib stood and flushed the toilet calmly, his back to both of them.

"You're fucking crazy Dib." Jenna spat at him, pulling against Josh's grip. "All of those people are dying and you could save them with a phone call. You're insane.

Dib whipped around, brown eyes flashing with rage, and pulled her away from Josh, pushing her hard into the wall and holding her there by her shoulders. "I am NOT crazy!" he yelled in her face, the stench of vomit nearly making her feel the need to empty her stomach as well. "They are not my responsibility anymore….I am not crazy," he repeated much calmer and let her go.

"Hey man," Josh started and reached for him, but Dib shrugged him off and pushed his way back through the door and to the couch. As he grabbed the remote and started to flip past all the pictures of his ruined hometown – his ruined proof – Josh led the now-crying Jenna through the house and out to his car. Dib flipped through Mysterious Mysteries, which he hadn't watched since Middle School, through endless commercials and finally stopped on a mindless cartoon. Cartoons were good for escaping your own life.


	5. Chapter 5

It had been two days since the "terrorist attack" hit the news, and Dib hadn't gone to school since. He'd cried sick, started carrying a full water bottle around (_I've been so thirsty lately_, he reasoned with himself, but the bottle remained full), and became jumpy at every little noise. "That's silly," he said aloud once, "if Zim was about to attack I certainly wouldn't hear it. Most of his machines were too quiet to be picked up by a human ear. I'd need to get out dad's sonic sound tracker again, and I'm pretty sure its still packed away in the basement since the move."

He had immediately smacked a hand up to cover his mouth and blushed.

But as the hours ticked on and he became more nervous, Dib found himself worrying about the attack he knew would come. He paced the bedroom as he thought and finally found himself standing stock still before the closet door.

"He'll go home. It would be pointless to come here just to attack me."

"He won't go home until his mission is complete and Earth is destroyed or under the rule of the Irken Empire."

"He can destroy Earth without me."

"He won't."

_I had access to things I probably shouldn't have been playing with..._

Reaching out a quivering hand, Dib pushed aside the clothes and boxes that lined the inside of the closet until he found the safety deposit box with the tall, thin house on the front. Zim's box. He still had the number memorized and his fingers flipped deftly through the code until all five numbers lined up in perfect order, springing the lock and allowing him to open the top. And there inside, safely tucked away from the disbelieving minds of all others, was the last of his proof. A single photograph of the alien without his contacts, his red eyes glaring in horror as the flash went off, his fingers dripping with the acidic chemical that had made the handprint on Dib's right side. Out of the entire roll, this was the only photo that had survived the attack, but as he was developing it Dib had been given the news of their impending move and he had taken it with him as a comfort blanket.

"I'd give anything to get that house back," he whispered to himself and closed the lid of the deposit box hard on itself. He kept it under his arm as he made his way across the room to the computer, shaking the mouse until the black screen disappeared and his icon-riddled desktop showed. My Computer, Disk C, My Documents, Homework, Science, and finally at the bottom of all the research papers on the effects of the round goby on the great lakes ecosystem (_results inconclusive_ he reminded himself), and the lab reports about the effect of terbium to naturally occurring yeast cells (_terbium was lethal to all yeast cells in any concentration_ his mind latched on to in a desperate attempt to stay sane), was an inconspicuous file marked only 'House'.

Dib double-clicked on the folder marked 'House' and held his breath while his computer began listing all the files within.

"Advanced Irken Technology"

"GIR: Standard-Issue Information Retrieval or Stupid Incompetent Robot?"

"House Schematics"

And finally: "Zim's Doom"

Dib double-clicked on the last file and smiled secretly as all his information on how to defeat Zim lit the page. If it was a war the alien wanted, it was a war the alien was going to get.

* * *

"I need your largest capacity super soaker and a dozen or so bags of water balloons."

The girl standing behind the counter (her nametag read "Lindsey") raised an eye at the brown-eyed kid before her and smiled knowingly. "Only one super soaker? We've currently got three backpack models in stock; the XP300, the SC Power Pak and the SC Big Trouble. If you can wait a week or two though I hear we have a new shipment of Monster XL's coming in soon." She had leaned over and whispered in discretion, "but don't let my boss know I told you. He doesn't like us pushing stock before it's in."

Dib chopped the air with a hand; "I don't have time for the Monster XL, give me the biggest of the other three." He rubbed his fingers across his mouth in thought and then changed his mind, "actually, I don't suppose you have a backpack that you could hook two guns up to?"

"I can see you're a serious gunman. The Power Pak is going to be your best bet there – no pumping required." She looked critically at the wall of water guns before her as she contemplated the problem. "You could always do a halter with smaller guns strapped in. The CPS 1000 might be a good choice – it's a little bulky for throwing around your waist but you look like you could manage well enough. And ultimately the best strategy is to back your opponent onto the pier and off the end. You can modify the Power Pak to a bigger tank, maybe even hook up the CPS to it as well and really just slam him back into the ocean."

She turned and grinned at him, "I've used that tactic quite a few times myself. I've got a friend who can tinker around with these and make you a custom, but it sounds as if you're in a hurry."

"No need," he waved the suggestion off, "I've had a little experience in modifying water-projectiles." But that was just kid stuff, he thought, this is war. "I'll take the Power Pak, the CPS and a few of the smaller guns. And then whatever you suggest for the water balloons. I'll need something small, easy to throw with good aim, and quick to burst on contact."

She reached out and grabbed a bag from the wall, "no popping problems with this brand. I take it you've had that problem before?" At his serious nod she smiled her condolence, "I've had the same problem myself. But I've been using these for years, and they haven't failed me yet."

By the time Dib left ToysRUs, Lindsey had loaded him up with all the best and latest in water-combat products and served him a bill of well over $200. All in the name of saving the world - as soon as he glimpsed one of those red, bug-like eyes he would open fire and wreak havoc on the alien's world.

* * *

Dib set a test-run for the morning of the third day. Strapping on the large water cooler he had stolen from his dad's lab, he connected two tubes to the Power Pak and CPS guns, respectively, and strapped two smaller water guns to their altered holsters. He placed a few full balloons into a bag also attached to the holsters, and then deemed himself ready for practice combat. He looked like a very wet and stupid Rambo.

"What are you doing?" Gaz asked as he walked between her and the TV.

"None of your damn business," Dib replied sourly as he walked past. "You wouldn't understand anyways, its…"

"Fate of the world type stuff?" Gaz looked up at him pointedly. "Yeah, yeah. I've heard it all before."

Dib flipped her the finger and continued to the backdoor, the glug of the water cooler drown out by Gaz's new game – the Return of Pig Zombies from the Planet Vorg.


End file.
